


A Midsummer Day's Nap

by soft_but_gremlin



Category: Mumintroll | Moomins Series - Tove Jansson, 楽しいムーミン一家 | Moomin (Anime 1990)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Napping, but if theres one thing adults like doing, its complaining about how old theyre getting, old friends being both old and friends, theyre not that old
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:14:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23246833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soft_but_gremlin/pseuds/soft_but_gremlin
Summary: Moominpappa and Muddler intended to spend the afternoon sailing, but Joxter had disappeared, and if they wanted to invite him along, they'd have to find him first.
Relationships: Joxaren | The Joxter & Muminpappan | Moominpappa, Joxaren | The Joxter & Rådd-djuret | The Muddler, The Muddler & Moominpappa
Comments: 6
Kudos: 31





	A Midsummer Day's Nap

Joxter had been missing for most of the afternoon.

He wasn’t  _ gone _ ; Muddler had seen his backpack sitting by the couch in Moominhouse, so he knew that Joxter hadn’t left, but at the same time, Muddler hadn’t seen him since lunchtime. He and Moominpappa had been thinking of taking the boat out sailing for a bit, and he’d gone to look for Joxter and ask if he’d wanted to come. So far, he hadn’t had much luck finding the mumrik.

It seemed that his luck was about to change though. He’d found a particularly sunny spot in a small clearing just off the path he’d been on, and a red hat stuck out in all the green of the forest. Muddler walked up to Joxter, being careful not to sneak up on him, as Joxter was occasionally very easy to spook. It seemed that Joxter was asleep.

“Joxter?” Muddler asked.

The mumrik didn’t even stir.

“Joxter, wake up!” Muddler said firmly. No response. 

Muddler sighed. Joxter only had two modes when it came to sleeping: awake at the slightest noise and more asleep than the dead. It seemed that Muddler was simply going to have to wait until Joxter woke to ask if he wanted to go sailing with them. With a huff, Muddler sat on the grass. After a few moments, he leaned back, resting his head on Joxter’s stomach. He may as well watch the clouds go by while he waits.

Moominpappa huffed as he went on the search for his friends. They were supposed to go sailing together this afternoon, but Muddler had gone on the search for Joxter an hour ago and had yet to return. So, now he was on the search, to see what shenanigans they’d gotten themselves into and whether or not they’d need his help.

His first stop was the Moominvalley jail. It was an unlikely location, and it yielded no results, but he knew his friends well enough that it was a reasonable stop. The Inspector informed him that no, Muddler and Joxter were not at the jail, and then asked Moominpappa if he would pass along an invitation to Joxter to go on a picnic with him and Mymble Junior and Snufkin and Little My. They invited Joxter on these picnics fairly frequently, though he had yet to accept. Snufkin might have finally begun trusting the Inspector, but Joxter had more than forty years of distrust built up, and frankly, Moominpappa wasn’t sure that was ever going to be dismantled. Still, he told the Inspector that he’d pass the invitation along.

After that, he wandered into the woods. He knew well enough that Joxter was not anywhere on the beach, as he’d been wandering up and down it waiting for his friends to come back. Besides that, Joxter wasn’t nearly as fond of beaches as Moominpappa was. Apparently, napping in sand ranked rather low on the list of things Joxter enjoyed doing, below “doing chores” even (but still above “going to evening parties with fireworks”).

Moominpappa had lived in Moominvalley for several years now, and as such he had a fairly good idea of what little hideaways and sunny spots a Joxter might be hidden in, but there were many of them, and this was of course guessing that Joxter was napping or hiding somewhere quiet away from children--if he was causing shenanigans, there was no telling where he might be. Well, that wasn’t exactly right. Based on Moominpappa’s experience with both Joxter and his son, Moominpappa could narrow down a list of five or ten places that shenanigans might be occurring, but considering that there had been no shrieking, explosions, angry yelling, calls for reinforcement, or unexpected mobs of hattifatteners, if Joxter was causing trouble, Moominpappa had no idea where he was.

Moominpappa settled in for the long search, but was lucky enough to find his two friends after only the seventh place he looked. There was a small, sunny clearing on a hill that Moominpappa often sat in when he missed Muddler and Joxter, precisely because it seemed like the sort of place that they would hang out in if they had the opportunity. He clearly knew his friends well, because here they were, asleep in the grass. 

“Well, would you believe this!” he huffed quietly, a little annoyed. He knew exactly how this had happened. Joxter had found a lovely quiet spot for an afternoon nap, fell too deep into slumber, and wouldn’t wake up when Muddler called. No doubt Muddler had then gotten distracted waiting for Joxter to wake up and then fallen asleep himself. It had happened more than once in their adventures when they were young, and would no doubt happen even more in the future, now that they were all older and even more prone to falling asleep if they sat still for too long.

It wasn’t exactly the way that he’d intended to spend the afternoon with his friends, but Moominpappa supposed that it would do. He walked to the other side of Joxter from the one Muddler was lying, set his hat down on the ground, and lay his head on Joxter’s chest, carefully moving Joxter’s arm so that it wouldn’t be pinned and therefore all pins and needles when they awoke. He gave a deep sigh of dramatic indignation, and then peacefully enjoyed the sunlight and his friends’ quiet company until he fell asleep himself.

When Joxter awoke, he felt pinned down by weight that was practically familiar at this point, and, confused, wondered when Mymble Senior and her Horde had shown up. Barely cracking open an eye, careful not to show that he was awake and careful not to disturb them, he found himself even more confused when it was not a dozen Mymblekids resting on his torso, but rather Muddler and Moominpappa. It wasn’t an unwelcome discovery, but...unexpected. They hadn’t done this since they were kids.

He heard people calling their names, and sat up, waking the other two in the process. He wondered how long they’d been asleep. Probably less than a day, since Muddler especially had always been prone to short and fitful sleeps, but certainly more than a couple hours, as the sky was darkening.

Joxter gave a loud beep, and then three sharp whistles, morse code for the letter J and his typical response when people were looking for him. Muddler flinched, and muttered something that Joxter was sure he’d never hear in the company of Fuzzy or the children. The birds repeated the sounds, no doubt spreading the word towards Moominhouse. Birds were odd in Moominvalley, uncannily repeating many sounds that Joxter made and following him around the forest. He supposed Snufkin had something to do with it, but he hadn’t gotten around to asking about it yet.

Moominpappa yawned, and then groaned as he tried to get his stiff muscles and rheumatic joints all back into functioning order. “How long were we sleeping?” he asked.

“I’ve been here since lunchtime,” Joxter said. “No idea about you two though.”

He stood up and stretched, cracking and popping like a campfire. Muddler made a face. “Do you  _ have _ to do that?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” Joxter said. “Mostly because you hate it.”

Muddler gave a huff of amusement. “Uh-huh,” he said. “Or maybe because you two are so  _ old _ .”

“I’m only four months older than you!” Moominpappa said indignantly.

“Chronologically, maybe, but excuse me for saying so, those joints sound at  _ least _ a decade older than mine.”

“Aww, the baby of the family’s finally learned to make mockery like the rest of us,” Joxter teased, pulling Moominpappa to his feet.

“Well, age is just about the way you feel, and I don’t feel old at all,” Moominpappa said. Then, not even looking at Joxter but knowing the exact expression on his face and what he was about to say, Moominpappa preemptively said, “Nope. Don’t say anything.”

Joxter scoffed, but played along. “If age is about how you feel, I’ve had one foot in the grave since I was eleven.”

“That’s dark!” Muddler said with a laugh.

“Oh, like you weren’t the same way at that age,” Joxter said. “If age is this mysterious feeling, I think you’ve gotten younger as you’ve aged.”

Muddler chuckled. “Oh? Why do you say that?”

“Well, when I met you, you couldn’t go five minutes without worrying about how soon we would all die, and now you don’t even stutter,” then, with a mocking, radio-host voice, Joxter added, “Scientists want to know, Muddler, what  _ is _ your anti-aging secret?”

The three of them burst into laughter, and that was when their children found them. 

“Where have you been all day?” Little My demanded. “We’ve been searching all over!”

“Dinner’s probably cold by now,” Sniff said reproachfully. “It’s eight o’clock already!”

“Eight o’clock? Already?” Joxter asked. 

“Eight o’clock  _ already! _ ” Sniff repeated.

“Well if that’s the case, we’d better get you all home to your mothers,” Joxter said. “Or at least to Moominmamma and Fuzzy, since Mymble’s not in the valley. I’ve heard once or twice that it’s very important for children to have all their meals.”

“I thought you were going to go sailing today,” Moomintroll said. “Why did you change plans?”

“Oh, you know,” Joxter said with a dismissive wave, “fate or something silly like that.”

Snufkin gave his father a confused look. Joxter had disparaged the idea of fate several times around Snufkin, so it was odd to hear him blame it so casually. Moominpappa and Muddler seemed to find it very funny, though, so perhaps it was a joke between them.

They all walked home and had a lovely, if lukewarm dinner. Joxter thought it was a day perfectly wasted. It was nice, sometimes, to have a day perfectly wasted, the way that children wasted almost every day. As he strolled through Moominvalley in the dark, though, he thought that the next time he perfectly wasted a day, he might sleep a little less during the daylight hours. Age might just be a feeling, but he was feeling a little old to be staying up all night, especially since he felt obligated not to cause too much trouble in Moominvalley. He respected his old friend too much to cause strain between him and the law in this valley.

Still though, there was a whole night to be perfectly wasted as well. And in Joxter’s forty-plus years of living, he’d certainly picked up a whole repertoire of troublesome things to do that were not illegal and mostly harmless.

As Joxter walked towards Mymble Junior and Too-Ticky’s house to string all of their shoelaces backwards, he looked around at the beautiful valley bathed in soft moonlight, and smiled. Nights were always so lovely in Moominvalley.


End file.
